Part 2

“And his foreman missin’,” supplemented Weinie. “Swede has hived up with Pete Gonyer, over on Roarin’ Creek, and Beans threatens to shoot th’ first woman what pokes her nose in th’ kitchen.”

“Swede got tired of yellin’,” laughed Chuck. “Mama mine! This shore has been what you’d call an audible week. Has Potlatch Annie gone home yet?”

“Nope. I seen her this mornin’. She’s livin’ in th’ ol’ man’s room and I see her wearin’ that fancy silk coat he bought that time he got stewed down at Great Falls. When he sees her there’ll jist about be uh vacancy in her tribe, Chuck.”

Chuck saddled two horses, and just as he climbed into the saddle he heard a hail from the house and saw Miss Elberfield waving at him.

“I just wanted to ask you one question,” she said, as Chuck rode up.

“Do you really think your manager loves this Indian girl?”

“Well,” drawled Chuck, “I’d shore hate to say he don’t. You see it’s this way: Annie, bein’ an Injun, is entitled to uh certain allotment uh ground in the reservation. If she’s got uh husband he gits in on it, and every half-breed papoose gits uh share too. _Sabe_? I don’t _sabe_ love much, but any man can admire good land.”

“Mercenary brute!” she snapped. “Will he be here today?”

“Yes’m, about noon. I’ll probably be with him. You see I’m about th’ only person in th’ county he can fully trust. Everybody trusts me.”

“Perfect faith is a great thing,” she sighed.

“Yes’m. Sometimes I think that I’m to be classed with th’ inscription on uh dollar, ma’am. Everybody trusts me. So long, ma’am.”

* * * * *

Old Hank Padden swung wearily off the east-bound train and shook hands with Chuck.

“How’s everything, Chuck?” he asked.

“Pretty fair, Hank. Have uh good trip?”

“Very dry. Let’s go over and loosen up some of th’ dust.”

They ambled over to Sam Belden’s saloon and finds Zeb, Mort, Weinie and Hen playing freeze-out. They shake hands with Padden and line up to the bar with many a wink at each other.

“Well, here’s luck to him, boys!” laughed Zeb. “And may all his troubles be li’l ones.”

“Huh!” exclaimed Padden. “They can’t be too small to suit me.”

“Ten pounds is uh good average, I believe,” chuckled Mort.

“Hm-m-m” grunted Padden, looking foolish at Mort. “Ten pounds uh what? I suppose you fellers ain’t done nothin’ but trail into town and lick up hooch since I left. Yo’re all talkin’ loco language. Zeb, did you and Mort go after them strays over on th’ Little Muddy?”

“Nope,” replied Zeb. “We been too busy close-herdin’ th’ house. You know why.”

“Only I don’t know!” snapped Padden. “Would some of you imitation cow-punchers tell me what th’ joke is?”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!” roared Zeb. “Ain’t he there, boys. Dog-goned ol’ fox, eh? Oh, well, Hank, it happens to th’ best of ’em. Let’s all go over to th’ depot.”

They left the saloon, slapping each other on the backs and laughing, while Padden stood and stared at Chuck, as if asking for an explanation.

“Chuck, am I running an insane asylum or a cow ranch? Am I crazy or what’s th’ matter?”

Chuck grinned at Padden and admired the color of the liquor in his glass before he replied:

“You see, it’s this way. They wasn’t talkin’ about you a-tall. Swede Johnson is goin’ to marry Potlatch Annie, and he’s done stated that you are goin’ to be best man at th’ weddin’, and also to be godfather, whatever that is, to his first born. _Sabe_?”

“Lord A’mighty, Chuck! Annie’s already got uh husband!”

“Not now,” stated Chuck. “She did have, but somebody slips ol’ Runnin’ Wolf uh quart uh wood alcohol.”

“But Swede ain’t goin’ to marry that klooch is he?”

“Shore is, boss. She’s livin’ in th’ ranch house right now--yore house.”

Old Man Padden slammed his glass on the bar and snorted with fury.

“By th’ horns on th’ moon! I’m goin’ right up there and bust this up! In my house, eh? Dog-gone it, Chuck, that Swede knows I don’t allow no woman, red, white or black in my house! Here I goes away fer uh week and th’ first thing he does is to bring uh flea-packin’ squaw up there. I’ll show that pool-ball-headed cow-trailer where to git off at, Chuck. Come on and I’ll show yuh some fun.”

“I’d shore admire to,” replied Chuck. “But I can’t go with yuh. My bronc done picked up uh nail in his hoof and can’t hardly walk. I’ve got to rustle another hoss before I can git my saddle home.”

“Well, I’ll go on then. Git uh hoss as soon as yuh can, cause when I gits through with Swede I’ll shore need another foreman. If yuh sees th’ rest of them crazy punchers, tell ’em to come home sober or git their time.”

“Hello, Mister Padden!” yells a voice that rasped on their ear-drums, and there stood Swede Johnson, with a grin all over his face.

Padden stands there and stares at Swede for a full minute. He don’t seem able to speak, and Swede remarks in the same tremendous voice:

“I hope they don’t buy you out, Mister Padden. If they does I won’t work for ’em.”

“What th’--what’s th’--matter with you?” howled Padden. “Do you think I’m deef? Yuh--yuh Swede Johnson, yo’re uh--dog-gone, I jist don’t seem to be able to express my feelin’s a-tall. You squaw-marryin’, lop-sided, marble-headed full cousin to uh coyote, you. What do yuh mean by bringin’ uh broad-faced, flea-packin’, smoke-smellin’ aborigine into my house, eh? Yo’re fired, Swede! I only wants you to come near my ranch once more, and that will be to git what’s left of that squaw after I pitches her out on her head! _Sabe_?”

Padden pushed the amazed Swede to one side and gallops over to the hitch-rack, where his bronc is tied. He vaults into the saddle and without a backward glance, fogs for the Seven-A.

“Huh!” grunted Swede, as Padden faded into the distance. “I’d almost say that I’d been fired, Chuck.”

“Uh-huh,” agreed Chuck, sitting down on the saloon porch and rolling a smoke. “Takin’ it all in all, Swede, uh feller would de-duce that he ain’t goin’ to put himself out none whatever to induce you to labor on his property any more.”

“He said I was uh lop-sided, squaw-marryin’--Say, Chuck, I ain’t married to no squaw! Dog-gone it all, I ain’t!”

“Don’t yell, Swede. Either ease up or hire uh hall. I ain’t disputin’ yuh am I?”

“Somebody told that around, Chuck. By cripes, when I finds th’ hombre what circulated that story I’ll stake him out to uh sidewinder! Chuck, did--did you tell ’em I married uh squaw?”

“Me? Say, Swede, there are times--infrequently--when I’ll depart from th’ naked truth to help uh friend, but far be it from me to marry a friend into th’ Piegan tribe.” And then to himself: “That’s no lie. Annie’s uh Flathead.”

* * * * *

Hank Padden spared not his mount on his homeward journey. Usually an easy-going, hard-to-make-mad person, when he did get angry he shut his eyes to everything but his own personal feelings. He spurred his horse right up to the porch of the house and slid off. He dropped his reins and strode up on the porch, and just then the door opened and out walked Miss Clarissa.

“Did you wish to see some one?” she asked, peering at Padden.

Hank looked at her for a moment and then snorted:

“Chuck was a danged liar! He said it was uh squaw!”

Then he starts for the door. Miss Clarissa steps in front of him and holds up her hand.

“Would you mind stating your business?” she asked.

“Ma’am,” replied Padden, “since when has th’ owner of this place got in so bad with his household that he has to stand on his porch and explain why he wants to go in his own house?”

“Oh! So you’re the owner, are you?” She looks Padden over from boots to sombrero. “Well, you look just like a man who would marry a poor squaw for gain. For a few measly acres of land, you marry her. Yes, you look like you would do it. I pity the poor girl.”

“You do, eh!” snorted Padden. “I never posed as uh he-beauty, ma’am, but I shore resents marryin’ squaws. Jist about who are yuh and what are yuh doin’ here?”

“I suppose you don’t know who I am.”

“Ma’am, I’m no good at puzzles. I’m a-listenin’.”

“I am,” she replied, “the woman who wrote those letters. I also received replies from you. Your memory must be very short.”

Padden jabbed his spur into his ankle and scowled at Miss Clarissa.

“I’m neither asleep or drunk, so I must be crazy,” he mumbled to himself.

“I suppose you’ll say next that this Indian girl isn’t your wife.”

“My--what? Wife?” roared Padden. “Did you say wife?”

“Don’t you dare to deny it!” she snapped, shaking her finger in Padden’s face. “I can forgive you for killing those two cowboys, and for stealing cattle, but a man who deliberately marries a poor Indian girl for what property she can bring him, makes her live in a teepee, while he lives in ease and comfort, and then denies it--well, he’s outside the pale of forgiveness.”

“Go on and strike me!” she continued, as Padden grunted and started toward her. “I wouldn’t put it one bit past you.”

“Lord love yuh, woman!” wailed Padden. “I wouldn’t strike yuh--besides it’s agin’ th’ law in this state to hit uh person which had glasses on. Somebody’s shore gone loco, ma’am. I’d shore admire to----”

“Here comes the girls!” exclaimed Miss Clarissa, pointing down the road.

Padden turns and looks at the wagon-load of petticoats driving into the front yard, and then sits down weakly on the steps.

“Sufferin’ coyotes!” he wailed. “They’re comin’ in bunches!”

In the next few minutes there is a lot of female talk spilled around the place. Everyone tries to talk at once, and they swamps Miss Clarissa with kisses. As Zeb said afterward; “There was more kisses spilt right there in uh minute than ever was smacked in Yaller Rock County since the Custer fight.”

“Now, girls,” said Miss Clarissa, after the kissing bee was over, or had rather died down to skirmish fire, “come right in the house. We will probably have to get the men to build us some more beds, but we’ll get along nicely.”

The girls danced up the steps and into the house, right past Padden who is sitting there like a foundered calf, looking at the sky. Weinie, Hen and Zeb are still sitting in the wagon, and looking foolishly at Padden, who seems to come out of his daze after a while and notice things. He opens his mouth several times and then points at the stable.

“Put up th’ team,” was all he seemed able to say.

“Gosh, th’ ol’ man is still there on th’ steps!” chuckled Hen, as the trio went back to the bunk-house.

“Uh-huh,” agreed Zeb. “He ain’t got no other place to go. We ain’t got no room in here for him--and th’ stable’s full.”

“I wonder where Chuck is?” mumbled Weinie through the lather on his face. “Drop that necktie Zeb! Dog-gone, uh feller can’t own nothin’ around this place without some jasper actin’ free with it. I buys that tie uh purpose fer this occasion. Chuck’s got uh dandy green one in his war-sack--help yourself.”

“Over th’ unconscious form of old man Warner’s son yuh might,” stated Chuck from the doorway.

“Hello, Chawles!” laughed Zeb, sluicing his face from the wash-basin.

“Did yuh see th’ girls? Chuck’s uh wise ol’ owl, Hen. He opined he’d have first pick from this female herd, but Swede gave th’ secret away. Did yuh notice th’ li’l blond, Hen. Th’ one what sat beside me all th’ way up. Some han’some li’l filly, eh? Believe me, Hennie, ol’ boy, li’l Zebbie is shore goin’ to mark one uh them matrimonial holdovers off th’ books.”

Chuck sat down on the bunk and picked up an old magazine.

“Ain’t yuh goin’ to harvest th’ hair off yore face, Chuck?” asked Weinie. “Aw, be uh sport. Jist because yuh didn’t git first pick ain’t no reason fer uh peeve. Hereafter don’t tell Swede anything, old-timer.”

Chuck shook his head and sprawled on the bunk, as the rest of the bunch trailed off toward the house. He rolled a cigaret and pondered deeply.

“Matrimonial bureau,” he grinned to himself. “Well, dog-gone it, mebby it wasn’t a fabrication after all.”

He thought of the new green tie and pink shirt in the war-sack, and reached for the razor.

“You never can tell which way uh dill pickle might squirt,” he soliloquized, as he reached for the sack. “I might as well put on that blue vest too.”

He took his belongings out of the vest he was wearing and, as an afterthought, ran his hand into the inside pocket. He pulled out a crumpled envelope and turned it over in his hands. He studied it for a few minutes, with a frown of wonderment on his face, and suddenly broke into a smile. He slipped his finger under one corner of the flap and opened it.

For fully five minutes he sat on the bunk and read and reread the contents of that envelope. Finally he slipped it back into the pocket and sat down on Zeb’s bunk, and incidentally on top of Zeb’s guitar. He picked up the instrument and picked softly on the strings.

“Bring ba-a-ack, bring ba-a-ack, oh, bring----”

“Hey, Chuck! Oh, Chuck!” yelled Zeb’s voice from the house. “Come up here, th’ ol’ man wants yuh, Chuck.”

Chuck walked slowly up the slope toward the house, which seemed strangely silent for a house so full of the gentle sex, and opened the door. Everybody was in the front room, and the silence was pregnant with disaster. The women were all standing around Potlatch Annie on one side, and on the other stood Padden, all alone, and off to one side--sort of neutral--stood Zeb, Hen and Weinie.

“Did you not tell me that this Indian girl was the wife of your manager?” asked Miss Clarissa.

“He surely did,” stated Miss Genevieve, before Chuck had a chance to speak. “I heard him.”

Chuck cleared his throat and fidgets with his hat.

“I’ll tell yuh how it was if you’ll give me uh chance. Yuh see----”

A little scream from one of the girls nearest the door causes every one to turn, and there stood the tallest, meanest looking Indian in the state of Montana--Chief Running Wolf. He’s painted up like a circus bill-board and carrying a heavy carbine. The top half of his face is stained a bright yellow, the lower half is vermilion, and two bands of green are painted across his forehead and one runs the full length of his hooked nose. He exuded an aroma of lemon extract and bay rum.

“Hooh!” he grunted like a Mogul freight engine on a grade, as he shifted the rifle to a handy position and looked over the assemblage. He swung the rifle, with both hands, across his hip and scowled at Padden.

“Yo’ stealum klooch?” he grunted.

“Not me, chief,” denied Padden. “You see--yo’re supposed to be dead!”

“Plenty lie no good! Johnson say yo’ stealum. Mebby so Tenas Charley (Chuck) help stealum. Lie no good! Hooh!”

He stood as straight as a young lodge-pole and shook the feathers in his greasy hair.

The women were all scared stiff, but they didn’t have anything on Hank Padden. Hank knew that Running Wolf was drunk, because he had got a whiff of the flavoring extract, and he knew what an Indian was capable of in that condition. All the time the chief is making his war talk, Padden is getting his fingers under the window and lifting it up. Just then the chief sees Potlatch Annie, and he breaks into a smile.

“Huh!” he pats himself on the chest and nods his head.

“All he needs is Watson and th’ needle to be uh Sherlock,” murmurs Chuck to himself.

“_Mesika klatawa klaghanie!_” howls the chief at Annie, and points at the door.

She lost no time in getting outside. He turns to Padden and takes one step forward.

“_Kahpho kopo talapus!_” he hisses at Padden, the same in English meaning “Brother to a coyote!” and slaps that rifle barrel into the palm of his hand.

“_Bang!_”

Either he had been doing all his talking with a cocked rifle in his hands, or struck the hammer in some way as he swung the barrel down, because the rifle went off and blew a pane of glass out of the window behind Padden and filled the room full of smoke.

Rats never left a sinking ship with such dispatch as the present company left the Seven-A ranch house. Padden took what was left of the window and carried it proudly around his neck as he galloped wildly down past the corral and off across the flat toward the Little Muddy. He knew that Running Wolf was a crack shot.

A few of the women knew that the house had doors, but the majority took it for granted that the owner knew the best exit and followed him through the window. The trio of wife-hunters clawed their way out of the front door and lit running right away from there.

Running Wolf, in the exuberance of his flavoring jag and war-paint, emptied his rifle at everything in sight and then reached for more ammunition. His reaching was in vain, for the reason that at the moment his rifle was empty, Chuck slid out from under the horsehair sofa and attacked him from the rear.

“Wah!” yells the chief, as Chuck hustles him to the door, by the slack of his pants and the short hair in the back of his neck.

“_Spat!_” Chuck’s heavy riding boot caught the chief in the most convenient part of his anatomy, and the chief lit on his painted face in the gravel.

“Wah!” he snorted, sitting up and scowling at Chuck. “He-e-eap cultus!”

“Shore was!” snapped Chuck, rubbing his ankle. “_Klatawa_, yuh ornery acid swillin’ aborigine!”

The chief got up and waddled off down the trail. He needed a drink to drown the insult.

“That shore was uh welcome interruption,” chuckled Chuck. “In about another second I’d have had to tell uh lie.”

He walked back into the house, but there was no one in sight. Not even a ribbon was left to show that a woman had ever invaded the precincts of the house. As Chuck walked back to the front door, he ran right up against the muzzle of a rifle, and Hank Padden’s angry face was behind it.

“Now, dog-gone yo’re hide, Chuck, yo’re a-goin’ to tell th’ truth!”

“Drop that gun, Hank!” roared a voice behind them, and there stood Magpie Simpkins, the sheriff, covering Padden’s back with a long, blue Colt of large caliber.

“That’s right, Hank, drop it! What yuh tryin’ to do around here--kill off all yo’re help? Slip these on him, Chuck.”

He handed Chuck a pair of handcuffs which Chuck accepted mechanically and looked foolishly at the sheriff.

“What--what in ---- yuh tryin’ to pull off, Magpie?” yelped Padden. “Stickin’ uh gun in my back and wantin’ me to wear hardware on my wrists! I ain’t done----”

“Anything yuh say can be used agin’ yuh in court,” stated Magpie, as he snapped the cuffs on Padden’s wrists. “Jist better keep yore mouth shut and come peaceful like, Padden.”

Padden flopped down in a convenient chair and stared first at his wrists and then at Magpie. The women had evidently overcome their fears and crowded into the house and stared at the sheriff and his prisoner. Padden scowled at Magpie for a few minutes, amid a deep silence and then--

“You long, cadaverous kin to uh coyote, what do yuh mean? Used agin’ me in court? Me? Jist about what fer?”

“Hank,” replied Magpie, looking at the women in open-mouthed wonderment, “I’ve got uh warrant for yore arrest on uh charge uh murder.”

“Huh--I--uh--say, who did I murder?”

“Th’ paper don’t say, Hank. It was swore out by uh woman who was in Curlew today. She got th’ warrant from Judge Wilson, and he hands it to me when I’m goin’ through there today. It don’t say who yuh murdered, but it does say that yuh done got two punchers.”

“That woman, whoever she is, is uh danged liar!” roared Hank.

“Don’t you call me a liar!” Miss Genevieve Elberfield strode out from the bunch of women and faced Hank with a flushed face. “I swore out that warrant. You can’t escape the consequence of your acts. If men won’t clean up the West, the women will have to. We didn’t care to have our girls come out here while a creature of your caliber was at large, but we didn’t find out about you until it was too late, so Miss Vanderberg and I decided that we would do the next best thing and put you behind the prison bars. Oh, you don’t need to look surprised, Mister Man. We were told all about you by a man whom everybody trusts. He wouldn’t lie.”

“Hello, folks!” yelled a voice from the doorway, and Johnny Myers, foreman of the Triangle outfit, removed his hat with a flourish when he saw the ladies. “Who’s sick?”

“Who’s sick?” echoed Hank. “By th’ horns on th’ moon, I am, Myers! Better git on yore bronc and hit fer th’ ridges, ’cause this wickiup is shore sufferin’ from aggravated hallucinations.”

“Well,” remarked Myers, “it don’t look natural, that’s uh fact. I was cuttin’ across th’ hills down by Roarin’ Creek uh while ago when I meets Chuck Warner on uh roan hoss and he shore was goin’ toward town some fast. He pulls up long enough to tell me that he’s on his way to git uh doctor, and then he fades out of sight. That’s shore some travelin’ bronc he’s ridin’.”

The sheriff took two long strides and looked out of the door.

“Uh-huh,” he grunted. “That roan shore can run. Cost me uh hundred.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Miss Clarissa, “but did you--did I understand that your name is Myers?”

“Yes’m, that’s my name. Johnny Myers, of th’ Triangle.”

“I’m Miss Clarissa Vanderberg, of the Gladstone School for Girls.”

“Gosh!” exclaimed Johnny. “Why, I’ve been lookin’ fer uh letter from you fer two weeks. I figgered that yore cattle-ranch outing didn’t pan out th’ way yuh expected. Did--did Chuck tell yuh this was th’ place?”

“No, no, I don’t believe he did.”

“Well, ma’am,” grunted Padden, “that’s one thing in his favor. It’s probably th’ first time that he ever had uh chance to lie and didn’t.”

“Ma’am,” whispered Padden, edging over close to Miss Clarissa, “did you ever run uh matrimonial bureau?”

“Why, the very idea! Of course not! Why do you ask that?”

“Oh--I--huh--jist asked, ma’am. No harm done.”

“Well, I suppose we’d better move over to Mr. Myers’s farm at once, or go back East again,” stated Miss Vanderberg.

“Amen,” sighed Padden. “There’s two things I can’t stand. One is uh woman around th’ ranch, and th’ other is--ridin’ th’ sheriff’s hoss after uh doctor.”

* * * * *

“My Bonnie-e-e-e lies over th’ ocean. My Bonnie-e-e-e lies----” sang Chuck Warner in a plaintive minor key, which was completely drowned out by the clatter of the cattle car under him, as it crossed the Curlew switch and headed west. “Mama mine! When yuh come to think of it, Bonnie ain’t got nothin’ on li’l Chuck. I reckon me and her goes fifty-fifty. But I does all my lyin’ on this side of th’ sea.”

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the April, 1917 issue of Adventure magazine.]